One Day They'll Know Your Name

The gift of a name

Christmas had finally arrived, and with it, the distractions of decorations and general holiday cheer. Most of the professors were in the Christmas spirit and adjusted their classes accordingly. Fewer points were taken, and Harry was able to correct his name more often and louder in class, to laughter and no points taken. He wasn't sure if it would last after the holiday, but he figured he would find out after break. Professor Flitwick taught them how to make lights of different colors, which seemed to be a variant of the Lumos charm. That week he called Harry Mr. Viridi, which was green in Latin, as they learned to make the lights green and red first, and red hardly fit the young Slytherin.

Professor Sprout taught the children about mistletoe and a few other holiday related plants, which surprisingly did have a few magical properties. Harry found that lecture particularly fascinating.

Professors Snape and McGonagall seemed to be the only ones who weren't in the holiday spirit. Professor Snape snapped at more students than he had the entire year so far, it seemed, mostly Gryffindors, and took
almost as many points. Professor McGonagall, while not seeming any more stern than usual, seemed to be even harsher when mistakes happened, taking points for any word spoken wrong in her class. Harry
wondered what had happened to them to make them dislike Christmas.

Meanwhile he was exchanging letters with Sirius, who was still in St. Mungos, and Harry doubted he would be out before the New Year. Ten years was a long time to be stuck with Dementors, even if he had been Padfoot as often as he could. Luckily, he still had his sense of humor mostly intact and gave Harry a new last name ever letter, from Tartar to Mordor. Harry didn't know how he knew what Mordor was, but then he remembered that his mum was a Muggleborn and had probably brought in at least some books from the Muggles. Lord of the Rings was a classic and he didn't blame her one bit for showing it to her friends. He started returning his names in kind, using names like Charn, Snowball, and Monte Cristo. He hadn't read as much as he would have liked when he was living with the Dursleys, but he had managed to escape to a library on occasion.

Hagrid brought in twelve whole Christmas trees just for the Great Hall, and they were all much taller than the half giant. All of the halls were indeed decked, and the bells jingled quite merrily indeed. One day while they were having a snowball fight on the lawn, the Weasley Twins managed to jinx some snowballs to keep following Professor Quirrel around and hit him in his turban. Harry thought it was very funny, and maybe a bit mean, but the worst that happened was getting a little wet, and none of the snowballs even went into his face.

The beginning of break arrived and most of the students left. There were only a few students left, and Harry was the only one who stayed in Slytherin. The Weasleys also stayed, as well as two Hufflepuffs, a girl named Hannah Abbott who was close acquaintances with Neville, and Ernie MacMillan, who Harry remembered from the Sorting, and three Ravenclaws, none of which he knew well at all.

Christmas morning dawned on a deeply sleeping Harry, who groaned at the strange light filtering through the lake and rolled over, wanting to go back to sleep. Unfortunately, he heard a light thump against his window and shot into a sitting position. He slowly turned toward the window and saw a strange shape that seemed to have too many limbs. He smiled with too many teeth to be a real smile and said, "Hello, Bob. I knew there was a reason I wanted to fight you."

The squid seemed to be laughing at him, waving his many tentacles. Harry growled under his breath. "Bloody squid. Can't even get a good lay in." He flopped back onto his bed before shooting up again.

"It's Christmas!" he yelled, then flushed, before remembering he was the only one here and whooped even louder. He bounced on his bed, then caught sight of a small pile of wrapped presents at the foot of his
bed. "I got presents?" he breathed, incredulous. He had only gotten a few presents before, and they had all been horrible, a single old sock of Vernon's or an extra pair of Dudley's old underwear.